Law & Apple: Cupertino Responds to Disgruntled Employees

Last month, we found out that two former Apple retail store employees were suing the mothership, alleging that Apple insists employees wait around, off the clock, to have their bags checked, before they can leave. When Apple did not respond right away, there was some hope that perhaps Cupertino would just settle out of court and change its store policies. Well, Apple did finally respond, and it's taking a totally different approach. Read on.

Former Apple vs. Apple

The original lawsuit brought by Amanda Frlekin and Dean Pelle claimed that Apple allegedly requires workers to wait around, without pay, for up to a half-hour a day, until supervisors can search their bags for stolen goods, and that this policy costs thousands of employees around $1,500 a year.

Now seven more people have joined the lawsuit, corroborating the claims of Frlekin and Pelle, and getting in line to get paid as well. Because, well, nobody wants to miss out on overtime pay.

Finally, we hear from Apple regarding this lawsuit. Cupertino has decided, for now, to fight the claims in court, and filed a detailed response (PDF) that basically states: we didn't do it; if we did do it, we were allowed by law to do it; if we did do it, and we were not allowed by law, it was totally and accident; and finally, if we did to it, and it was not allowed by law, and it was not an accident, well, the statute of limitations has passed anyway, so there.

I find your lack of wanting to stay at work without pay... disturbing.

To be clear, Apple did not deny that it holds employees to check bags. It does. Cupertino just wanted to point out that it's no big deal, because only "some employees" were forced to undergo "personal package and bag searches."

Apple is also claiming that the federal Portal Act might come into play, implying that perhaps these unpaid delays before employees were allowed to leave work should fall under the regular time an employee spends “walking, riding, or traveling to and from the actual place of (work) performance,” and that time is not paid time.

If the courts want to be sticklers and state that time sitting in your work waiting on your manager to clear you to go home is not at all the same as sitting on the bus, Apple hinted that it will argue the time spent waiting was "de minimis," or just a few minutes or seconds of undefined time.

It seems Cupertino is intent on not backing down from this lawsuit; admittedly, if guilty, Apple would be writing a lot of checks to a lot of employees. But you get the feeling that, when Apple states in its response that the statute of limitations in many states is going to prohibit these claims, Cupertino's not taking the high road here.

A basic rule of employment is that you pay your employees for the time your require them to be at work. If the claims of these disgruntled employees are true, and Apple does not seem to be denying them, well, here's hoping Cupertino does the right thing and pays its workers what is owed.